Omalizumab for cholinergic urticaria: 6 months prospective study and systematic review of the literature

To examine the effectiveness of omalizumab on disease activity and quality of life in patients with cholinergic urticaria (CholU). Further, a systematic review of the literature was performed to identify all studies of use of omalizumab in CholU. A total of 23 patients (63.9%) were refractory to updosed non-sedating antihistamines and initiated omalizumab in the observation period. Among these, an improvement of 10.8 UAS7 points (4.6-17.0), P = .002, was seen at 6 months follow up. DLQI and disease bother score VAS also improved significantly from before initiating treatment with omalizumab to follow-up; 7.0 points (3.6-10.3), P < .001 and 3.1 points (1.5-4.8), P = .001, respectively. The overall mean drug survival time for omalizumab (discontinued due to any cause) was 30.6 months (22.2-39.0). A total of five patients (21.7%) reported suspected side effects (headache, muscle pain, fatigue and injection site reactions) during treatment with omalizumab until 6 months follow-up. The systematic literature review identified 58 additional antihistamine refractory patients with CholU treated with omalizumab. The available studies reported that omalizumab is effective in patients with CholU and improves their disease-related quality of life. Omalizumab is safe, reduces disease activity and improves disease-related quality of life in patients with CholU.